PSYCHOLOGY AS A PROFESSION Eleventh Lecture PSYCHOLOGY AS A PROFESSION

PSYCHOLOGY AS A PROFESSION: Prior to World –War II, most psychologists were associated with universities. Since the 1940’s increasing numbers of psychologists have worked in hospitals, industry, government, military service, and community mental health centers. Many have also established private practice.

One of the most rapidly growing fields is clinical psychology, concerned with the diagnosis and treatment- of psychological problems. In most states in the United States psychologists engaged in clinical psychology are required to be certified. Graduate institutes of psychology, such as the California School of Professional Psychology and the one at Rutgers University, are structured for the special training of clinical psychologists. Some professional schools of psychology issue the Psy. D. (Doctor of Psychology) degree rather than the Ph.D. as health providers, clinical psychologists are expected to be certified with the Council for the National Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology.

Like Physicians, clinical psychologists carry malpractice insurance and can be summoned before a board of their peers for conduct unbecoming their profession. Unlike psychiatrists, however, psychologists cannot write prescriptions for drugs, in other respects the gap between psychiatrists and clinical psychologists is continually narrowing, partly due to the latter’s important contributions. To psychotherapy. Most of the newer systems of psychotherapy developed in recent decades have been devised by psychologists.

These include such widely used systems as Rogerian or client-centered therapy, behavior therapy, and rational-emotive therapy (Albert Ellis). Many the diagnostic and testing procedures mentioned previously were also developed by psychologists.

Closely related to and overlapping the work of clinical psychologists is that of the school psychologist and counseling psychologist, who are involved in educational guidance career planning, the administration and interpretation of aptitude tests, intelligence tests, and achievement tests. Another field related to clinical psychology is community mental health.

Effective work in community mental health, however, calls for more than the efforts of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychiatric social workers. The efforts of layperson are also needed, especially in crisis intervention, which requires the assistance of anyone who is present during the crisis. Another distinguishing characteristic of community mental health is its concern with the environmental setting and its effect on the mental health of the community.

Organizational, engineering, and industrial psychologists serve as consultants to business and industry. They also perform research and experimentation for the business, industrial, and engineering-world. A major concern is elevating employee morale and productivity. More basically, they are concerned with the human factor as it relates to machines. Engineers, for example, may build more sophisticated airplanes and wartime fighting equipment, but it is left to the engineering psychologist to determine whether the human being, in terms of noise, fatigue, and stress, is able to cope with such advanced equipment.